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A Linguistic Odyssey | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6144 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 209 of 265 19 April 2010 at 7:47am | IP Logged | |||||
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I feel like crying. This week started off so well, and I got all of my goals done on time up until Thursday, when everything suddenly started going all wrong. Thursday, of course, was German, and it is around this time of the week that schoolwork starts piling up a bunch again. I suppose it wasn't great planning on my part to place the languages that generally take the most time for me (aka, not the Romance languages) all in the second half of the week. Anyways, I got next to nothing done starting Thursday up until partway through today. Part of it was events that prevented me from studying, part was fatigue, and part was laziness. I got into one of those annoying moods where you know that you should be doing something but really don't want to, and then you regret that you didn't do it later on. I did a lot of reading on here this weekend, and I can tell you that this forum is becoming much too addicting for me. I intend to limit myself from now on to logging on only on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. This should unlock a great amount of learning time for me.
Well let's go over what I had intended to do from Thursday onwards and what was actually accomplished: - Ultimate German lesson (yes) - Type up LM German 102 Vocab (yes) - Νέα Ελληνικά lesson (partially) - Ultimate Japanese lesson (partially) - Kanji up to #1380 (no, only to #1360) - SEGR lesson (partially) Well my German lesson was probably actually part of the reason for the backup. I wanted to get that done before moving onto other stuff, and the lesson looked really boring and I didn't have time to do it Thursday morning, so I just kept putting it off longer and longer. I only actually finished it today. In regards to German still, I also typed up the vocabulary section of the next lesson to save time for this upcoming Thursday (it also looked fun). I have now completed 38 out of 40 lessons in my German book, I'm so excited! For Greek, I also had a long vocabulary list, so I kept putting that off too. I did the lesson with my grandmother on Friday, followed by reading an article to her from the Greek newspaper Το Βήμα about the volcanic eruption in Iceland (which I hadn't actually heard about...) while she was making dinner. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I was able to completely understand and how much I got from context. Tonight I typed up the vocabulary section and all that remains is to learn the words. For Japanese, I haven't studied in two weeks! This is horrible and must be remedied. I have the vocabulary section written out from last Saturday, but have not even read the dialogue or the grammar. This is very saddening. As for kanji, when I get behind like this, it's really hard to catch up. I'm still 20 kanji behind as of today, because I didn't learn for a few days and then panicked today. I also hadn't reviewed in two days and I had over 150 glorious reviews waiting for me. So I'm now at 1360 instead of 1380. I'll see if I can learn another 20 tomorrow and then 20 again on Tuesday. Luckily, I have been able to figure out a way to reduce the number of failed kanji, so I don't have that problem anymore. NEW KANJI: 兵, 浜, 糸, 織, 繕, 縮, 繁, 縦, 線, 締, 維, 羅, 練, 緒, 続, 絵, 統, 絞, 給, 絡, 結, 終, 級, 紀, 紅, 納, 紡, 紛, 紹, 経 Aggg, Swedish. The same plight as with Japanese. I haven't studied in two weeks besides translating the opening text (did this last weekend) and typing up the vocabulary section (tonight). However, I did do a lot of listening to the tracks from SEGR that I had recorded on RhinoSpike. It turns out that the kind woman who recorded most of them for me was our own cordelia0507, from this forum. Thanks Johanna/Cordelia! Well, I came across a thread on here last night talking about how cheap (but better quality) the older TY books are. I have noticed this with my TY Esperanto book, which is one of the older editions. So, last night I investigated and then astonished by the insanely low prices (many were only $0.01 or $0.99 plus shipping) I went a bit crazy and bought a bunch of them. I bought them for Arabic, Chinese, Czech, Finnish, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Latin, Persian, Polish, Russian, and Turkish. I also wanted to mention that the Germanic languages really are very interesting to compare. I was looking at some stuff that Iversen had written in Icelandic followed by the translation in English and I was able to find Swedish cognates off the top of my head for a lot of the words, which was rather exciting. In addition to this, I learned the German word for 'to force,' zwingen today from my lesson, and then when typing up my Swedish vocabulary, one of the verbs was tvinga, with the same meaning. It took me a second but then I realized that it sounded familiar because I had learned zwingen only hours before! Again, this also ties into what I mentioned before about being able to understand much of written Dutch because of German, Swedish, and English. One more thing is that I am often able to predict when a verb in Swedish or German is going to be irregular in the past tense based on if it's irregular in English and is a cognate. For example, today I was typing up the German weben (to weave) and my book didn't say that it was irregular in the past, but I knew in English, it's I weave --> I wove --> I have woven, so I checked Verbix and I was right--in German it's ich webe --> ich wob --> ich habe gewoben. Of course, it is "optionally irregular" because it could have had the regular endings as well... But anyways, I ramble. Lastly, to make up for the fact that I have been underachieving in several of my languages of late, namely Swahili, Japanese, Swedish, and Greek, I will cancel activities for Portuguese and French for the rest of April. I will study them if time permits, but they won't be a priority for now. Instead, I intend to study more of the aforementioned languages, and be less stressed. I would really like to just drop French and Portuguese, but I still have unused materials for them, so I feel that I should finish those up before dropping them, because otherwise it would be a waste. I hope that by July at the latest I will have finished up all of my materials for these, and for Spanish and Esperanto, and possibly for Italian too. This will allow me to focus more on Greek, German, Swedish, Japanese, and Swahili. After I come back from Tanzania in mid-July and if I have been able to finish off Spanish, Portuguese, French, Esperanto (and maybe Italian too), I will permit myself to begin with Russian. Six languages is I think the most I can reasonably manage to study actively at a time, because that's one per every day of the week minus one, which leaves a time for rest, regaining sanity, and in case I slip up one day. It also allows me to doubly focus on a language if I so choose. Well it's late and I have to get off now. --Philip Edited by ellasevia on 19 April 2010 at 12:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6144 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 210 of 265 23 April 2010 at 7:00am | IP Logged | |||||
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I don't have time to write much now, but I promise that I will write tomorrow. However, I think that my entire week (and essentially the entire month of April) could be summed up in the following phrase:
"Complete and utter failure." I've been putting off writing here because I was too embarrassed to admit no progress. Among my non-achievements we have... - NO Portuguese (this was planned) - NO French (this was planned) - 1 lesson behind on Italian - 1 lesson behind on German - 1 (optional) lesson behind on Greek - 2-3 lessons behind on Japanese - 6 days behind on kanji (maybe more?) - 2-3 lessons behind in Swedish - NO Swahili - NO Esperanto - NO Spanish - Little Polish I have an hour left before I have to go to bed, so I'm going to try to finish up my Anki for sure and try to get some other study done. Some candidates are: - Kanji study - SEGR vocabulary/review grammar - Ultimate Italian vocabulary - Ultimate German vocabulary - Ultimate Japanese lesson/vocabulary In other news, my Teach Yourself books for Hungarian and Arabic arrived today. Hooray. That Hungarian book completely dwarfs a lot of the other TY books that I have, Japanese excepted (they're about the same thickness). --Philip 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ruskivyetr Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5483 days ago 769 posts - 962 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Polish, Modern Hebrew | Message 211 of 265 23 April 2010 at 7:18am | IP Logged | |||||
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OH MY GOD PHILIP. MORE LANGUAGES? HUNGARIAN AND ARABIC. Some would call you crazy. I just call you
freaking AWESOME! However good TY Hungarian may seem, in my flirt with Hungarian a few months ago (never really learned it, just got a book), I really researched resources. Hallo Itt Magyarorszag is actually really good (I didn't buy it, a friend had it and let me see if for a total of ten minutes, in which I learned quite a lot about the book itself). NO DOUBT you already know of FSI Hungarian, available for FREE. The book I got was the Hippocrene book. It isn't too good, but I got it dirt cheap, and the lessons bring in information nice and slow. Arabic, hmmm. You need a good book to learn to write (those charts at the beginning of books won't help), The Arabic Alphabet: How to Read and Write it by Awde and Samano is REALLY good. The way it works, is it builds up on letters. It introduces one letter. It gives words just in that letter (with the vowel diacritics), and you are supposed to copy every word you see. With the next letter, it gives you words that use both that letter, and the letters before it, so it is realy well structured. It also has a really good explanation for sounds, etc. A Reference Grammar of Modern Standard Arabic by Ryding is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. I found it almost essential. Modern Standard Arabic Grammar by Hassanein is also really cheap and good. Arabic Verbs and Essentials of Grammar by Jane Wightwick is absolutely fantastic, but a little basic. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6144 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 212 of 265 23 April 2010 at 7:24am | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks for the compliment...but I'm not actually planning on studying Arabic or Hungarian anytime soon, even though they are in my top five priorities for new languages. I think I mentioned this here, last weekend I went on a major shopping spree and bought a bunch of cheap TY courses, among them Hungarian and Arabic. These were just the first two to arrive.
As for the Arabic alphabet, I pretty much know how to read/write it, but as I haven't practiced it in a while, it's a bit rusty. I learned in October with my friend, but I got mad at the pharyngealized letters and didn't bother learning them. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ruskivyetr Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5483 days ago 769 posts - 962 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Polish, Modern Hebrew | Message 213 of 265 23 April 2010 at 7:31am | IP Logged | |||||
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Hahah np.
I wish I could do that :(. I'd do it with random books though. For example, (even though it's not cheap) there's this Eastern Armenian textbook that I REALLY want, I just can't get it yet (it's $120 USD). I REALLY want to buy it before the summer, but I barely have enough money as it is, and AS IF my parents will pay for it :P. Oh well. Which languages did you get other than Arabic, Hungarian, and Polish? Edit: I saw the list of languages. TY Turkish is really the only one out of those I have, but it's definitely one of the better ones that I've seen. Edited by ruskivyetr on 23 April 2010 at 7:34am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6144 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 214 of 265 23 April 2010 at 7:36am | IP Logged | |||||
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Oh, I only was ABLE to to it because the books (especially the older versions) are incredibly cheap. I bought several for under a dollar, and a couple for even just one cent (plus shipping of course, which was about $4). In my previous post I wrote that I got TY courses for Arabic, Chinese, Czech, Finnish, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Latin, Persian, Polish, Russian, and Turkish.
I've already almost filled up two shelves with language courses, and I'm having to rearrange things a bit to make more room... I had to relocate my books about language but that weren't actual language courses elsewhere. Edited by ellasevia on 23 April 2010 at 7:37am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ruskivyetr Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5483 days ago 769 posts - 962 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Polish, Modern Hebrew | Message 215 of 265 23 April 2010 at 7:38am | IP Logged | |||||
Czech's really fun :). After Polish if you ever do Czech, you'll find it's just really learning new vocabulary (sort of). It will just be really really simple to you. Just compare the Czech and the Polish one (vocabulary and grammar wise), and you'll find that even as a beginner the similaries are easy to spot. Edited by ruskivyetr on 23 April 2010 at 7:39am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6144 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 216 of 265 23 April 2010 at 7:42am | IP Logged | |||||
Yeah, Czech was originally what I was interested in, but Michel Thomas unfortunately doesn't have a Czech course, so I went with Polish instead. I fell in love with Czech when I visited Prague with my grandparents in 2007, which was amazing. The language sounds SOOO cool and also looks amazing with all of its diacritics. Plus, the Czech Republic is a beautiful country. I was particularly astonished by Prague's architecture (and other cities', but we were mainly in Prague and went on a day trip to Karlovy Vary). 1 person has voted this message useful |
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